Perception vs. Reality
At age 8, David Eagleman fell off the edge of a roof. While he was falling, he felt the world slow down, and he saw his life flash before his eyes. His fall made him want to study the neural basis of time perception in crisis situations, and years later, David became a neuroscientist and expert on topics like time perception, brain plasticity, and neurolaw. In this episode, David talks about sensory substitution, the plasticity of the brain, and the potential future state of the human experience. He also breaks down what he calls “livewiring.”
"David Eagleman offers startling lessons.... His method is to ask us to cast off our lazy commonplace assumptions.
- The Guardian
"David Eagleman is the kind of guy who really does make being a neuroscientist look like fun."
- New York Times
"David Eagleman may be the best combination of scientist and fiction-writer alive."
- Stewart Brand
"Eagleman has a talent for testing the untestable, for taking seemingly sophomoric notions and using them to nail down the slippery stuff of consciousness."
- The New Yorker
"[A] neuroscientist and polymath."
- Wall Street Journal
"A popularizer of impressive gusto...[Eagleman] aims, grandly, to do for the study of the mind what Copernicus did for the study of the stars."
- New York Observer
"What Eagleman seems to be calling for is a new Enlightenment."
- Sunday Herald
